I need to clean my gas tank

I am looking for cheap or free way to clean a gas tank with a generous amount of surface rust of the inside. Any ideas would be helpful.
Thanks,
Tiny

 

The instructions for the tank coating kits says to put in a handful of drywall screws with a solvent (paint thinner?) and shake the bejeebers out of the tank. This should remove the loose rust and scale from inside the tank. Pour out the solvent, remove the screws, and run another batch of solvent through the tank.

I would thing the drywall screws would do a great job of removing loose rust.

 

Muriatic acid works well,and is inexpensive. This is very caustic stuff,so protective eyewear,clothing,gloves,and if possible,a respirator should be used. After a thorough rinse with the acid (you may want to repeat the acid rinse,depending on the severity of the rust),do a final rinse with a water/baking soda mixture. The baking soda will neutralize the acid ... otherwise you will get "flash rust" in the tank.Be careful not get the acid on your skin,it BBBBUUUUUURRRRRNNNNNSSSSS ! (Don't ask how I know.) Good luck,Tiny!

 

I'm going to try white vinagar in mine and see what happens. It removed rust from some carb parts and did a nice job.

 

Ive heard good things about vinegar and using hand full of screws or nuts or something of the like, but have not actually done so myself.

 

I was given an extremely inexpensive trick by a friend. I know it may sound a bit weird but here is the trick: molasse and water. My friend brought back to life a bike that had not run for some 20 years and he told me that this little reciepe was like magic to him.

The recipe is 1 part molasse to 5 parts water. Mix well and insert into your gaz tank. Let sit for 2 weeks but stir up the mixture in the tank every other day.

I don't know the special ingredient in molasse that does that but I know I haven't eaten molasse since then.

Cheers to all from snowy Gatineau (Canada)

Looking forward to the riding season (that is the polite way to express my true inner feeling)

 

I used a couple cups of the small fish tank gravel and ½ gallon of leftover carb cleaner. had an old set of petcocks with no screens mounted, took off the cap taped off the opening. Shook it every time I looked at it for a few days leaving it laying in different positions everytime. It was completely clean when finished. Then shook out all the gravel through the petcock openings. Rinsed it out with some diesel.

 

Fish tank gravel, now that's a good idea.

 

You might consider Coke. Let it go flat, first and make sure you rinse it very well when done. People use it to clean car radiators with. It contains phosphoric acid.

 

try a couple liters of white vinager with twenty or thirty 1/2 inch nuts (if you string them it will make it alot easier to get them out, soak for a couple days add nuts and shake or depending on your budget try a kreem or simaler three stage tank kit but if it's really rusty you may want to wash with nuts first anyway
Shaun

 

I had excellent results using the electrolysis method with washing soda and a battery charger.

Just Google "gas tank rust removal electrolysis" and you'll find detailed instructions, YouTube videos, etc.

Happy cleaning!

Herb

 

There are some really great easy ideas here. I think I am going to try the electrolysis method and then put some sort of liner in the tank. I will post a thread and let you know how it comes out.
Thanks for all the great ideas,
Tiny

 

How did the electrolysis method work out for you?

 

I would urge against using any kind of gravel to knock the rust loose on the inside of the tank due to the incredible difficulty of rinsing it all out. The last thing in the world you want in your fuel is anything that is abrasive - that stuff goes into your cylinders. It may be too small to be filtered out by an inline filter so it will go through your carbs but it will substantially shorten your engine's life. Use some nuts and or bolts and or screws as has been mentioned but make sure they have enough iron in them to be magnetic so that you can fish them out with a magnet (in other words - no magnesium and even stainless is not always magnetic so be careful!). Don't use anything too small. I would recommend nothing smaller than 5/16" or if you like the metric system 8mm. Smaller than that and you will be spending a lot of time fishing for little screws down in the corners of the tank.

 

If you are planning on coating the inside of your tank you can buy a kit for about $50. It has a acid, a soapy water, and a tough liner. I did mine on a weekend. I used a handful of drywall screws with the acid and it worked great!

 

Mine's not too bad now, but I'm keeping an eye on it. Did some research and found this website that has some good details on electrolysis.

http://www.altelco.net/~jacil/clay/moto ... Setup.html

 

Did mine with the kit. Sealer has kept if from re-rusting. Simple and easy to do.

 

yeah I was thinkin of tryin that out when mine got bad enough. I was at the store the other day and took a quick look for arm and hammer washing soda but couldent see it on the shelf. Are you using somthing else? Let me know how it works out for ya.

 

I used a product called KBS Tank Sealer kit. It worked great. Very easy to use and will not eat your hands off like muratic acid. The kit was $30 at the local auto parts store. I have some before/after pics in my gallery.

 

Yep, thats about what mine looks like to japple999. I just didn't think about before and after pics... typical.